I don't have the full paper, but I got the abstract (which clears up many of the journalistic misrepresentations and errors of the cited re-hash) here:
Modern debate regarding the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs was ignited by the publication of the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) asteroid impact theory and has seen 30 years of dispute over the position of the stratigraphically youngest in situ dinosaur. A zone devoid of dinosaur fossils reported from the last 3 m of the Upper Cretaceous, coined the '3 m gap', has helped drive controversy. Here, we report the discovery of the stratigraphically youngest in situ dinosaur specimen: a ceratopsian brow horn found in a poorly rooted, silty, mudstone floodplain deposit located no more than 13 cm below the palynologically defined boundary. The K-T boundary is identified using three criteria: (i) decrease in Cretaceous palynomorphs without subsequent recovery, (ii) the existence of a 'fern spike', and (iii) correlation to a nearby stratigraphic section where primary extraterrestrial impact markers are present (e.g. iridium anomaly, spherules, shocked quartz). The in situ specimen demonstrates that a gap devoid of non-avian dinosaur fossils does not exist and is inconsistent with the hypothesis that non-avian dinosaurs were extinct prior to the K-T boundary impact event.
For the non-geologists, "floodplain" = "overbank". With currents only strong enough to carry a "silty mudstone"? So, it becomes untenable that the 45cm fossil has moved much from it's original location, either horizontally or vertically (in time, most likely upwards for a depositional environment like this). No doubt excavations have occurred or will occur shortly in search of the rest of the ceratopsian fossil,though it's possible that the fossil has been eroded already.
What does the paper say about the preservation of the fossil? Any evidence of erosion? Rounding of what should be sharp points, or removal of blood vessel groves on exterior surfaces compared to interior surfaces?
Bug-watching ("palynology" if you like polysyllabic designations) to establish the section's K-T boundary. Solid.
Phrasing it as a "the stratigraphically youngest in situ dinosaur" carefully leaves no verbal hostages to fortune : if another fossil is found at 20cm below the K-T boundary in a basin with three times the net deposition rate, then all that would happen is that the holder of the title changes. With a stochastic event like fossilization, eventually there will be a new holder. Of course, finding an un-reworked non-avian fossil from 13cm above the K-T boundary would really be news. Though Professor Challenger does claim such.
Damn, I'd better go and do this month's expenses claim.
I was specifically thinking of the Jai Singh observatories in Mughal India, but going to Wikipedia reveals a list of very old observatories, many of which are indeed in Central Asia.
(I'd be somewhat dubious of some of those claims for stone circles etc as "observatories". While some astronomical or calenderic function is very likely, calling them "observatories" seems a bit strong, from what I've seen of dozens of them.)
That is surely an easily testable or provable hypothesis. Some Geman drug company can't buy off all the governments in the world.
Epidemiology should be able to give a pretty quick answer. It's unlikely that the pesticide in claim was sold in all countries. so, if there are countries where the insecticide hasn't been sold AND where there is a bee decline, then the finger doesn't point directly at the insecticide.
There are no doubt lab studies under way. But some desktop epidemiology could yeild a very fast answer. And I'm sure it's been done already. The original AC has the whiff of "crank" about him (starting with being an AC).
Why finger Bayer as a German company? AFAIK, they're a multinational, though German roots are undoubted. And why are a lot of drug and chemical companies of German origin? Because the German government invested a lot in chemical education, training and research. And they're still reaping the benefits over a century later. I'm trying to remember what got Bayer started? Ah yes, Aspirin, of the famous copyright theft case by the Allies during World Massacre 1.
Why would you expect a self-confessed nerd (see page's tag line) to give a shit about the shit that is "pop culture"?
(I'm guessing this is a reference to Idiocracy, but it's a couple of years since I saw it. And it's hardly "popular", and barely of "cultural" significance.)
The copyright holders will be aware that they are playing "chicken" between their desire for successful DRM and their desire to get some fees from the films. At some point, the copyright will expire, and then they've lost their gamble.
There are people pressing for eternal copyright, but while that's a theoretical possibility, it's unlikely to be realised in practice. At some point, no one is going to have an interest, there will be nowhere to send the cheques to. And that in itself will create more problems.
in many cases the copyright isn't there for the authors, but for the publishers, otherwise why have such long copyright terms?
I have a friend who is the author of several books, all still in print and one onto it's second edition. They don't sell huge numbers, but he still gets a royalties cheque every couple of months, which nicely offsets the cost of running his hobby, the subject of several of his books ; you could view it as re-investing the profits from publishing into his art/ hobby. The printer gets a slice, the publisher gets more no doubt, but my friend doesn't want those cheques to stop, and so he doesn't want to release copyright on his works for the foreseeable future.
Those continuing cheques are why my friend supports substantial lengths for copyright terms.
What opinion my friend has about what happens to his copyright fees after his death, I don't know. I'll ask next time I see him.
Right, try travelling around the US without using a plane.
So... those wars in the 1800s to evict the native Americans from their homes were pointless as well as impossible (because you can't travel around the US without using a plane. Lewis and Clark (spelling ? - it's not my history) were fraudsters (though to the North, MacKenzie, being an honest Scot and using a canoe could have covered much of Canada). Wagon trains were not dragged across the nation. Millions of trees were not felled for sleepers to lay rails to run trains on. Miles of roads weren't laid.
You're mistaking convenience for impossibility. The convenience of un-searched flying has disappeared (you had that convenience ; the vast majority of my flying has always required a hand-on search, for nearly 24 years now), but that doesn't mean that there are no alternatives. You may not like it, but it's not designed for your convenience.
The copyright owner would be the human who owns the camera, the digital film, and created the situation where the photos were taken.
If the relevant law is written like that, I'd be utterly astonished. Leaving aside which law is relevant (Indonesia, where the pictures were taken ; the UK, where initial publication appears to have been based (Daily Flail) ; or the US, where I assume that TechDirt is based), a lawyer who wrote up legislation like that should be hung, drawn and quartered (more slowly than usual). Why? Because such a specification would utterly fall apart as soon as you had someone using a rented or borrowed camera. Or even worse, say a rented camera, into which s/he put a SD (or whatever) card borrowed from someone else, then took some photos of a situation which someone else had set up (e.g. a wedding).
I don't have a lot of respect for lawyers in general, but such a poorly phrased piece of legislation would fall below the logical standards of even a US Congressman.
The human photographer below owns the pictures
I dispute your assertion, regardless of the question of which country's laws apply.
There's a completely new radical default interface coming
Oh fuck, not another fucking new radical fucking inter-fucking-face. That is so the fuck likely to make me give a shit about learning another new fucking inter-fucking-face when this fucking shit fucking heap lands on today's computer. I'm so the fuck enthused by this.
Didn't they learn their lesson from the fucking Ribbon shit storm. Oh, sorry, I forgot, they're Microsoft ; they don't "do" "learning" any more than they do "listen to customers".
It'd be pretty sad if the lesson people take from the News Corp fiasco is: man, their IT staff should've really been more on the ball about making sure no evidence of the crimes they committed was accidentally retained.
But that is the lesson that is being taken.
I wonder if other people more generally are also taking the lesson that you can't give anyone's phone number to anyone else for any reason without the first person's explicit permission. (That applies to mobile and landline numbers, and any other number that isn't printed on business card or advertising media ; the business card is an implicit permission to distribute, I guess. IANAL.)
The policy I've taken for years is that if A wants B's number from me, then I'll tell A that I'll give A's number to B and leave it up to B to make the contact. Over complicated, maybe. But B's phone number is not my information to distribute.
I really can't imagine people retrofitting every car and replacing every alarm clock.
It's not going to happen. I've been thinking about getting a DAB system for around a decade now, and still haven't been persuaded to invest. My car is less than 8 years old, so should have a good 6 to 8 years of life left in it ; the radio in that is certainly not going to get replaced.
Actually, the house is down to 3 or 4 radios now, which is a slow decrease. I listen to the radio on the computer quite often now. But retro-fitting still isn't going to happen.
They are doing everything in RAM? Well, have fun at the next power failure.:-)
Maybe the solution would be to invest in SSDs?
Maybe the solution would be to invest in UPS?
FTFY.
UPS is not a sexy or new technology. And that makes it inappropriate?
Actually, thinking about it a little more, the reduced power demands and higher speeds of SSDs might make the UPS requirements less stringent, but for any high-availability system, UPS is an essential part of the mix.
Can't imagine many people suggesting that prostitution is morally sound.
What on earth could be morally unsound about prostitution, as the willing exchange of services for goods or money? (Note the important words "willing" and "exchange" in there ; plenty of instances of "prostitution" do not have these properties.)
Granted, these millennia you may have a job finding a man in a backwards shirt who publicly agrees with it, but what the shit would a minister of religion, swami, imam, shamen or other priest know about morals, being representatives of some of the most institutionally immoral organisations in the history of immorality?
My guess is that porn is the root cause of the OP's desire to get rid of the 'net in the first place...
As always, your guess is probably more illuminating about you than it is about the OP.
actually many theories exist that life originated from a collision with an asteroid that had the building blocks of life.
You're inappropriately conflating two perfectly respectable pieces of planetary development science.
About the only theory for constructing the Earth-Moon system that reasonably accounts for the distribution of angular momentum and mass, and which has a reasonable probability of occurring in a proto-planetary nebula, is for there to have been an off-centre collision between the proto-Earth (pick a name ; no one cares about a name) and a considerably smaller but still substantial proto-planet (same naming convention), resulting in the merging of proto-planetary cores (mostly iron) and the ejection of the main part of the mantle of the impactor into low (proto-)Earth orbit, where it assembled to form the Moon.
Unfortunately, such an event would have been fairly effective at baking the volatile elements out of the system. The Moon is noticeably depleted in "volatile" elements like sodium compared to the Earth, and more volatile elements like hydrogen are even more strongly depleted.
To get to the current inventory of volatiles on the Earth, there must have been a later period when smaller individual impactors had a relatively high volatile content, which brought in what would eventually become our oceans. The exact details... we (I speak as a geologist, with an interest in planetary science) simply don't know ; not that it stops people building (mathematical) models. But the constraints on those models change with the evidence. For example the recent (a half-decade or so ago) discover of zircon cores in the Acasta and Jack Hills metasediments that are both 4200Ma old AND were formed on a planet with a water cycle that included a liquid phase... means that the volatile acquisition and the formation of the earliest granitic (or at least, tonalitic) crust had taken place in those first 350Ma. Which is constraining, but not drastically.
It is hypothesised, but certainly not agreed, that the period of acquisition volatiles included the acquisition of significant quantities of amino acids etc that formed precursors to life. Other opinions have it that such materials could well have been produced by interaction between simple inorganic compounds (methane, CO2, water, ammonia). Again, it is a matter of honest debate, which doesn't raise much heat amongst the actual OOL (Origin Of Life) scientific community because it's not considered vitally important. Both (actually, several) mechanisms could produce substantial amounts of organic materials, but there would still remain a problem of getting the material concentrated amongst the larger quantities of water. Which is an interesting problem, which is not resolved by any means.
according to the page its : "in limited Field Trial" which I suppose means 'semi-open beta'.
... which sort-of begs the question of "how do they limit the participation in their beta?
If they did it the same way as they seemed to do with Gmail - invites to people they knew, asking them to invite other people - then did the terms of use/ invitation include some expectation that the beta testers should have some significant degree of resilience against technical failures as the project ramps? That the beta testers should actually provide some feedback (e.g. "Am I happy with the way that this project handles privacy? If not, how not and why not?") to the testing they do.
Wrong ; there's nothing difficult about being non-white AND racist. Didn't you get the memo?
Also, it's not opinions that are illegal. Acting in a racist manner or expressing those opinions in a manner that causes fear or alarm to others is what is illegal.
Slashdot Mirror
(I use the sound as my phone's ring tone.)
MS Office is "unique" in what sense?
For the non-geologists, "floodplain" = "overbank". With currents only strong enough to carry a "silty mudstone"? So, it becomes untenable that the 45cm fossil has moved much from it's original location, either horizontally or vertically (in time, most likely upwards for a depositional environment like this). No doubt excavations have occurred or will occur shortly in search of the rest of the ceratopsian fossil,though it's possible that the fossil has been eroded already.
What does the paper say about the preservation of the fossil? Any evidence of erosion? Rounding of what should be sharp points, or removal of blood vessel groves on exterior surfaces compared to interior surfaces?
Bug-watching ("palynology" if you like polysyllabic designations) to establish the section's K-T boundary. Solid.
Phrasing it as a "the stratigraphically youngest in situ dinosaur" carefully leaves no verbal hostages to fortune : if another fossil is found at 20cm below the K-T boundary in a basin with three times the net deposition rate, then all that would happen is that the holder of the title changes. With a stochastic event like fossilization, eventually there will be a new holder. Of course, finding an un-reworked non-avian fossil from 13cm above the K-T boundary would really be news. Though Professor Challenger does claim such.
Damn, I'd better go and do this month's expenses claim.
(I'd be somewhat dubious of some of those claims for stone circles etc as "observatories". While some astronomical or calenderic function is very likely, calling them "observatories" seems a bit strong, from what I've seen of dozens of them.)
Epidemiology should be able to give a pretty quick answer. It's unlikely that the pesticide in claim was sold in all countries. so, if there are countries where the insecticide hasn't been sold AND where there is a bee decline, then the finger doesn't point directly at the insecticide.
There are no doubt lab studies under way. But some desktop epidemiology could yeild a very fast answer. And I'm sure it's been done already. The original AC has the whiff of "crank" about him (starting with being an AC).
Why finger Bayer as a German company? AFAIK, they're a multinational, though German roots are undoubted. And why are a lot of drug and chemical companies of German origin? Because the German government invested a lot in chemical education, training and research. And they're still reaping the benefits over a century later. I'm trying to remember what got Bayer started? Ah yes, Aspirin, of the famous copyright theft case by the Allies during World Massacre 1.
(I'm guessing this is a reference to Idiocracy, but it's a couple of years since I saw it. And it's hardly "popular", and barely of "cultural" significance.)
There are people pressing for eternal copyright, but while that's a theoretical possibility, it's unlikely to be realised in practice. At some point, no one is going to have an interest, there will be nowhere to send the cheques to. And that in itself will create more problems.
I have a friend who is the author of several books, all still in print and one onto it's second edition. They don't sell huge numbers, but he still gets a royalties cheque every couple of months, which nicely offsets the cost of running his hobby, the subject of several of his books ; you could view it as re-investing the profits from publishing into his art/ hobby. The printer gets a slice, the publisher gets more no doubt, but my friend doesn't want those cheques to stop, and so he doesn't want to release copyright on his works for the foreseeable future.
Those continuing cheques are why my friend supports substantial lengths for copyright terms.
What opinion my friend has about what happens to his copyright fees after his death, I don't know. I'll ask next time I see him.
So ... those wars in the 1800s to evict the native Americans from their homes were pointless as well as impossible (because you can't travel around the US without using a plane. Lewis and Clark (spelling ? - it's not my history) were fraudsters (though to the North, MacKenzie, being an honest Scot and using a canoe could have covered much of Canada). Wagon trains were not dragged across the nation. Millions of trees were not felled for sleepers to lay rails to run trains on. Miles of roads weren't laid.
You're mistaking convenience for impossibility. The convenience of un-searched flying has disappeared (you had that convenience ; the vast majority of my flying has always required a hand-on search, for nearly 24 years now), but that doesn't mean that there are no alternatives. You may not like it, but it's not designed for your convenience.
If the relevant law is written like that, I'd be utterly astonished. Leaving aside which law is relevant (Indonesia, where the pictures were taken ; the UK, where initial publication appears to have been based (Daily Flail) ; or the US, where I assume that TechDirt is based), a lawyer who wrote up legislation like that should be hung, drawn and quartered (more slowly than usual). Why? Because such a specification would utterly fall apart as soon as you had someone using a rented or borrowed camera. Or even worse, say a rented camera, into which s/he put a SD (or whatever) card borrowed from someone else, then took some photos of a situation which someone else had set up (e.g. a wedding).
I don't have a lot of respect for lawyers in general, but such a poorly phrased piece of legislation would fall below the logical standards of even a US Congressman.
I dispute your assertion, regardless of the question of which country's laws apply.
FTFY
I have this slightly horrifying image of you with your tongue stuck (sizzling nicely) to an iron.
I think it's a Churchill-ism that "never were two races so divided by sharing a language".
Oh, I see Palin in my signature has 0.02$ to throw in too.
Oh fuck, not another fucking new radical fucking inter-fucking-face. That is so the fuck likely to make me give a shit about learning another new fucking inter-fucking-face when this fucking shit fucking heap lands on today's computer. I'm so the fuck enthused by this.
Didn't they learn their lesson from the fucking Ribbon shit storm. Oh, sorry, I forgot, they're Microsoft ; they don't "do" "learning" any more than they do "listen to customers".
Slashcode needs to be re-written so that whenever this meme resurfaces, it attracts an obligatory -10 moderation.
Genie ->bottle ; not going to happen.
Shit : not given.
But that is the lesson that is being taken.
I wonder if other people more generally are also taking the lesson that you can't give anyone's phone number to anyone else for any reason without the first person's explicit permission. (That applies to mobile and landline numbers, and any other number that isn't printed on business card or advertising media ; the business card is an implicit permission to distribute, I guess. IANAL.)
The policy I've taken for years is that if A wants B's number from me, then I'll tell A that I'll give A's number to B and leave it up to B to make the contact. Over complicated, maybe. But B's phone number is not my information to distribute.
It's not going to happen. I've been thinking about getting a DAB system for around a decade now, and still haven't been persuaded to invest. My car is less than 8 years old, so should have a good 6 to 8 years of life left in it ; the radio in that is certainly not going to get replaced.
Actually, the house is down to 3 or 4 radios now, which is a slow decrease. I listen to the radio on the computer quite often now. But retro-fitting still isn't going to happen.
Maybe the solution would be to invest in UPS?
FTFY.
UPS is not a sexy or new technology. And that makes it inappropriate?
Actually, thinking about it a little more, the reduced power demands and higher speeds of SSDs might make the UPS requirements less stringent, but for any high-availability system, UPS is an essential part of the mix.
What on earth could be morally unsound about prostitution, as the willing exchange of services for goods or money? (Note the important words "willing" and "exchange" in there ; plenty of instances of "prostitution" do not have these properties.)
Granted, these millennia you may have a job finding a man in a backwards shirt who publicly agrees with it, but what the shit would a minister of religion, swami, imam, shamen or other priest know about morals, being representatives of some of the most institutionally immoral organisations in the history of immorality?
As always, your guess is probably more illuminating about you than it is about the OP.
You're inappropriately conflating two perfectly respectable pieces of planetary development science.
Unfortunately, such an event would have been fairly effective at baking the volatile elements out of the system. The Moon is noticeably depleted in "volatile" elements like sodium compared to the Earth, and more volatile elements like hydrogen are even more strongly depleted.
It is hypothesised, but certainly not agreed, that the period of acquisition volatiles included the acquisition of significant quantities of amino acids etc that formed precursors to life. Other opinions have it that such materials could well have been produced by interaction between simple inorganic compounds (methane, CO2, water, ammonia). Again, it is a matter of honest debate, which doesn't raise much heat amongst the actual OOL (Origin Of Life) scientific community because it's not considered vitally important. Both (actually, several) mechanisms could produce substantial amounts of organic materials, but there would still remain a problem of getting the material concentrated amongst the larger quantities of water. Which is an interesting problem, which is not resolved by any means.
... which sort-of begs the question of "how do they limit the participation in their beta?
If they did it the same way as they seemed to do with Gmail - invites to people they knew, asking them to invite other people - then did the terms of use/ invitation include some expectation that the beta testers should have some significant degree of resilience against technical failures as the project ramps? That the beta testers should actually provide some feedback (e.g. "Am I happy with the way that this project handles privacy? If not, how not and why not?") to the testing they do.
Beta testing is a two-way street.
Also, it's not opinions that are illegal. Acting in a racist manner or expressing those opinions in a manner that causes fear or alarm to others is what is illegal.
But why let facts get in the way of a good rant?
Oh, sorry, I forgot the [sarcasm] tag.